


Even In the End

by comebacknow



Category: The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Laughter, Memories, Teresa POV, The Death Cure Spoilers, implied newtmas, implied thomesa, ive been told to add, newt really wanted shotgun, people still have their scars, post tdc, the other safe haven, you’ll need tissues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 12:57:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14237778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/comebacknow/pseuds/comebacknow
Summary: Teresa blinked her eyes at the girl next to her.  Dark skin, curled black hair, a kind face sprinkled with freckles.  “Welcome to the Safe Haven.”“What?” Teresa breathed out shaking her head. “I don’t understand.”The girl clapped a small hand on her shoulder.  “Let me rephrase.  Our safe haven.  Looks like you didn’t luck out the first time around, eh?” the girl laughed out.((Teresa finds herself in The Other Safe Haven. She also finds familiar faces.))





	Even In the End

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this as a part of TMR Valentine's Week for "Rare Pair Appreciation Day". I realized I never see anything about Newt and Teresa ever interacting, and I wanted to write a small piece.

***

Teresa slowly lifted herself on weak arms, a harsh dry cough sputtering from her.  She gasped a breath, then another. When she was finally able to take a full breath she opened her eyes, steadied her breathing. 

Sand. That’s what she was on, her hands - scarred - and knees sunken at different levels trying to steady her shaking body.  Another cough, a swallow, a blink, a breath.  She lifted her head, looking forward.

The sand stretched on for miles ahead of her and in the distance there was laughter, there was music.   _Tom.._  she thought, or perhaps breathed.  She blinked, she remembered. 

No, Tom won’t be here. No one would. 

On shaking limbs and with an empty head, she stood.  Balance, right foot sinking deeper in the sand.  A stumble forward, an arm outstretched.  A blink.   _Focus, Teresa, focus._

Another deep breath.  

And then.

A step forward, another shaking step, another arm tossed out for balance as the beach lurched sideways.   _Steady, Teresa._

 

As her boots found their steadied place in the sand, her arms finally relaxing - albeit shakily - at her sides and her breathing a bit calmed, she made her way closer and closer. The laughter louder, the music growing, movements and figures taking shapes.   _People, there are people._  

A quicker step, a half jog -  _no, just walk, Teresa. You don’t have to rush anymore. Just walk._

 

“Hey there.”

Teresa blinked her eyes at the girl next to her.  Dark skin, curled black hair, a kind face sprinkled with freckles.  “Welcome to the Safe Haven.”

“What?” Teresa breathed out shaking her head. “I don’t understand.”

The girl clapped a small hand on her shoulder.  “Let me rephrase.   _Our_  safe haven.  Looks like you didn’t luck out the first time around, eh?” the girl laughed out.

Teresa blinked at her.  “Is this… is this the afterli-?”

“Sorta. We don’t like to make it that dramatic.  _Paradise_ , works.” A toothy smile and then, “let me show you arou-.”

“Teresa?”

Teresa turned toward the low voice, a hint of a rasp to it.  She recognized that face.  Memories swirled just out of reach.

“It’s Teresa, right?” the boy slowly stepped forward, reaching out with a thin dark hand.  “Do you remember me? The Glade? It’s Jeff.”

Teresa emptily lifted a hand as the memories slowly dripped back in.  

“First time we met you were getting out of a coma, too.  Looks like time has a funny way of repeating itself, huh?” the boy laughed, dropping her hand.  “Sorry to see you here.”

Teresa scanned his face, a long scratch deep across his right cheek. “Are the others all here?”

Jeff shrugged. “More than I’d have hoped, to be honest.  But yeah, they’re here.”  He looked over his shoulder and back to her. “Come on.” He turned to the other girl, then.  “Thanks, Rachel.  I’ll take it from here.”

The other girl nodded and walked off.  Teresa swallowed, blinked, stepped forward in Jeff’s footprints.  “We could get you cleaned up as much as possible, but you’ll still have those scars.  Not much to do about them,” he chuckled, gesturing to his face.  “Here we are.”

Teresa tore her eyes from the water to look forward.  Face after familiar face, memory after familiar memory.  

“Hey! Look who made it!” The music slowed to a stop as the boy on drums stood nodding at her.  

“Alby…” she started, but stopped abruptly.

“Welcome to the Safe Haven,” the boy continued somewhere to the right of her vision.  “A bunch of us are here so you should…” his voice faded, everyone silencing.

Teresa’s eyes stayed locked on the black eyes across the circle.

The lanky boy stood still as a familiar, younger boy slid off his shoulders, slowly backing a step away.  She knew Chuck’s face, but couldn’t focus on him, could only stare at the black plated eyes, the black veined face ahead.

“You…” came from scarred lips, stained with venom that was attempted to be scrubbed off, but never fully gone.  “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Newt,” Alby’s voice came. “Newt, easy. We talked about this.”

The lanky boy took slow, tilted steps forward toward her.

Teresa stared ahead, gaping, until words finally came.  “No, no you were supposed to make it.  You were supposed to be on the berg.”

In a blink, those black eyes were inches from hers.  “ _Why are you here?_ ”

“Newt, we saved you.  Tom is alive. He saved you!”

The unblinking eyes stared back at her, a slight tilt of the boy’s head.

“Doesn’t seem like it, does it?” 

“We saved you,” Teresa shook her head. A stuttered step back. “I got him on the Berg for you.”

“ _You shouldn’t be here_.” A step forward.

“Newt.”

“Tommy loved you. You were supposed to be with him!”

“Newt, take it easy!” Voices called out around them, others slowly taking steps forward to the pair.

“ _Why did you leave him_?” Black venom landed somewhere on her neck, on her shirt, on her hands.  

Suddenly a hand was at Newt’s chest and Alby was between them.  “Newt, buddy. Take a walk, we talked about this.”

Those black eyes stayed on hers for another minute before he turned, walking off.

 

* * *

 

“What…What happened? I thought I was fast enough? I thought we made it?” Teresa stuttered out, heat from the fire licking at her burns.  No pain came. Not anymore.  

“It’s not your fault,” Alby spoke quietly from her side.  “You didn’t do it.”

“He didn’t make it,” she breathed. “He was supposed to make it.”

“I like to think we all were,” Alby shrugged. “Can’t help fate. It had other things in store for us.  We’ve just gotta make do.”

“Is he still…?” she couldn’t bring herself to say the words.

Alby exhaled next to her.  “Sometimes.  I guess it doesn’t fully go away when you get here.  He’s better, he can’t go completely gone here.  But it comes and goes.  Winston, too.  Ben.  Others.”

Teresa shook her head. “It’s not supposed to be like this.”

“Well, it is.  The sooner you accept that, the sooner you can start to accept this place for what it is.”

She looked over to him, past him to the younger boy next to him. A small smile appeared on her face.  “Hey, Chuck.”

The boy’s round face turned to hers with a smile.  “Hey Teresa.  Sorry to see you here, but no offense, I’d rather it you than Thomas.”

She laughed, for the first time since she could remember.  “Me too, Chuck.”

Silence settled between the three before Teresa finally stood.  “I’ll be back in a bit.”

 

Boots pressed in the sand, a soft crunch beneath them echoed by the waves on her left.  The water blended in with the dark sky.  Ahead, a barely visible silhouette of a boy, head turned down, a lock of hair hanging from his forehead. 

 

“He loved you too, you know?”

The back of the boy’s sandy blonde hair stayed still, facing the dark waves.  

Teresa waited.  Slowly, the boy turned, hand rubbing a small spot on his chest. Though his eyes were plated black, there was a sadness to them, a realness, something human in them.  

“I’m sorry I didn’t make it in time, Newt.” Teresa exhaled shakily.  “I thought…” she cut her words off.  There was no use in saying what she thought.  She’d thought wrong.

“You were supposed to be with him.”  

She looked up when the boy spoke.  Stilled, waited, listened.

“I knew I could never.  Not the way I was.” His veined hand dropped.  “Not the way I am.”

A swallow.  A burning behind her eyes.

“Minho?”

She blinked, and nodded for him to continue.

“Is Minho with him?”

She nodded slowly, recalling the boy grabbing Tom onto the berg.  “Yes, he’s there. And Brenda. Gally. Frypan.”

Newt nodded.  “Good.  Good.  I never want to see any of them again.”  His voice broke on the last words,  “I never want to see To-,” he stopped.  A choked breath, and then he buckled.

In a moment Teresa’s knees were in the sand, inches from the boy’s.  Newt was hunched over, body arched forward where he knelt.  She put arms around his neck, felt a shudder beneath her hands.  

He pulled himself back from her arms, sitting back on his knees.  The plated black eyes faded, almost to a too dark brown, almost to his original color - though glassy, filmed over, tears dripping their way down faded black veins.  “I couldn’t do it, Teresa. I couldn’t do it.” The words spilled out of him as Teresa clutched his shoulders in front of her.

“I know.”

“I couldn’t let him see me like that.  I thought he’d have you.  I thought he’d have you.” 

“He’s not alone, Newt. He’s not alone.” She squeezed his shoulders.  “He has Minho. He has all of them.”

Newt’s heaving breaths slowed to a steady rhythm again, his eyes clearing from the tears. 

“Hey,” Teresa smiled, dropping her hands into her lap.  “Remember that time, a while back, when we had just escaped WCKD?  Aris jammed the lock on that door and Tom had  _just_  made it under?”

A small smile appeared on Newt’s scarred mouth.

A breath. She continued.  “Remember how he flipped Janson off before running?”

“Yeah,” a choked, crack of a laugh came from Newt.  “He did it again when we jumped out of that window.”

“Out of a window?” Teresa raised her brows.

“Yeah,” Newt smiled, staring at a spot in the dark sand. “We had just rescued Minho - or rather, he’d rescued us - and Tommy’s brilliant idea was to jump out of a thirty story window into freezing cold water below.” A sniffled laugh.

Teresa exhaled on a laugh of her own.  “That sounds like him.”

“He flipped Janson off then, too.”

“Seems like a signature move.”

“Yeah.”

A breath.

A memory. 

A laugh.

Teresa tilted her head.  “Remember in the Scorch?  Walking up those sand dunes toward those mountains?”

“Those damned mountains,” Newt laughed.

“You hated that idea.”

“I did,” Newt looked up now, any trace of tears gone.  “I thought it was the dumbest idea I’d heard and this is  _after_  Tommy dragged us into a maze with Grievers.”

“Tom had a knack for dumb ideas.”

“He did,” Newt nodded.  “But we always followed through on them.”

Teresa shrugged, pulling her legs from beneath her and repositioning herself a bit more comfortably.  “That’s because we always knew he’d get us out in the end.”

Newt nodded and then stopped, tilting his head, brows coming together in a question over his black eyes.  “Did we, though?”

They shared another loud bark of a laugh, letting it echo across the waves, back to camp on the other side of the beach.

“I suppose not,” Teresa smiled.

“I guess you agree to some bloody stupid plans when you love someone,” Newt’s laugh faded, his eyes darkening a tint.

“I guess you do.”

A breath.

Another memory.

Another breath.

“He loved you, too, you know.” Teresa repeated.  “With everything he had.”

Newt only nodded, eyes locked on the sand between them.

“Even if he never said it.”

His eyes shifted to her’s now.  His head tilted up, looking at her straight on.  “I know he did.” A look of confusion came over his face. “He told me every day.”

Teresa tilted her head.

“Just like he told you every day,” Newt nodded to her.  “He told me when he thanked me for making him a runner.  When he kept his eyes on me as we ran though the maze, making sure I kept up with my stupid leg,” he laughed.

Teresa smiled at the way the boy’s eyes started to lighten, the faded darkened veins softening in the moonlight.

He continued.  “He told me when he helped me climb up those stupid dunes, and then, of course, back down them.”

“He told me,” Teresa smiled at her memory, “when you all came in to rescue me. Before the Scorch, I mean.  When he pulled me out of that testing room.  And when he sent me down that zip line before him, do you remember that?”

Newt laughed.  “We were so worried when he didn’t come after you.”

“I really thought he was still in that building.”

“Nah, I knew he wasn’t.” Newt shook his head.  “He was just being a hero, as usual.”

“How about when we found him at that party?”

“Yeah! How about that?” Newt tosses his hands in the air, before leaning back on them. “We’re out here running around the desert, fighting off cranks and he’s out here partying it up with them.”

Teresa barked out another laugh, curling over her knees where she sat.  She lifted her head back up, wiping her eyes.  “I swear, every time I reunited with him, one of us was unconscious.”

“Do you remember that time Jorge stole that truck - Bertha?”

“You fought so hard for shotgun, I thought you were going to take a swing at Minho.”

“I almost did,” he laughed.  “Since that day any time I’ve called shotgun nobody’s argued. Not once.”

Teresa threw her head back in a laugh, basking in it.  

A breath.

Silence.

Teresa opened her mouth.  Closed it.  Opened it.  “I’m sorry, for the way I did things.”

Newt stayed still, black eyes focused on his hands.

“I thought I was doing the right thing.”

“You were,” he offered.  “In one way or another.”

An inhale.

An exhale.

“Thank you,” Newt’s eyes found hers, “for saving him.  For getting him out.”

Teresa nodded.

“I know you loved him, too.“

Teresa swallowed. “I’m sorry we couldn’t save you.”

Newt shrugged. A sniffle. His head tilted back to look at the stars, and Teresa found herself doing the same.  “Tommy saved me every day.  Even in the end.”

Teresa smiled at the stars.  “Yeah, I guess he saved us all.  Even in the end.”

 

* * *

* * *

* * *

 

He sat on the edge of the shore.  He could still hear their laughter in his memories, even over the sounds of the waves, coming toward him but never quite reaching him.

He tilted his head back looking at the stars, grateful for every moment with them, every laugh, every hand grasped in darkness, names whispered, eyes locked.  They had both saved him.  Even in the end.


End file.
